


A Big-Screen Life

by Tieleen



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 19:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tieleen/pseuds/Tieleen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's first clue that something was wrong was being kicked out of bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Big-Screen Life

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/3266.html?thread=1735618#t1735618) awesome prompt at avengerkink -- the new Whedon movie is a based-on-real-events movie in the Avengers universe, and Whedon took some creative liscence with stubborn rumors insisting two of the Avengers are secretly a couple.

Tony's first clue that something was wrong was being kicked out of bed.

Well, not so much kicked, really. More like -- tipped, some sort of ninja move he'd barely even registered before he was rolling off the side and onto his ass on the floor. The floor was a lot colder, experienced like that.

"Ow," he said, plaintively. "What the hell, Barton?"

Clint's head appeared over the side of the bed. He looked more grouchy than actually annoyed, but then, Tony had never been good with that kind of thing, and Clint was harder to read than most.

"Are you shitting me?" Clint said. "No, let me rephrase that. Are you actually, honest-to-god, seriously shitting me?"

Tony gazed up at him in befuddlement. Clint's hair was sticking up in all directions, and there was a hickey high up on his neck that Tony remembered leaving not half an hour ago; his left eyebrow was raised, causing the faint lines on his forehead to deepen a little. None of this provided any clues except for the eyebrow -- Tony estimated that to be about the third most sardonic eyebrow lift Clint was capable of, not counting several special-order sardonic eyebrows reserved for things like watching various superheroes try to hit on Natasha or Thor talking about his brother's secret good nature.

The problem was, of course, that a normal-order sardonic eyebrow wasn't really much of an indication of anything. He tried going over the few minutes pre-ninja-roll for clues instead, and came up blank.

"I'm going to go with no," he decided, pushing gingerly up to his elbows, "since I have no idea what you're talking about. Did I mention ow? I can't pilot the suit if I'm paralyzed from the waist down because you broke my back, you know. Well, probably I can, but it'd need some serious extra work --"

Clint rolled his eyes and flopped back down on the bed, his head disappearing from view.

"I bet Steve wouldn't try to paralyze me with secret ninja maneuvers," Tony said sadly, sitting up and taking a brief second to thank -- well, himself, really -- that he had both robots and an AI to make sure his floor would always be squeaky-clean when he ended up buck-naked on it. Then he took an extra second to reminisce about the days when he'd end up naked on floors by his own choice and not because his significant other had apparently had a psychotic break. Oh, to be young again. "I bet Steve has excellent bedroom manners. Plus, any sense of tactical planning would suggest this kind of thing isn't going to do anything for your sex life."

"Oh, please," Clint said, and Tony could tell the sardonic eyebrow had upgraded itself to second-highest, even though Clint was lying on his back now, and from this angle all Tony could see was the non-sardonic one. "As if you're going to turn down sex over anything less than --" he turned his head to look Tony over; yep, upgraded eyebrow it was. "Actually, I can't think of anything you'd turn sex down for."

"See." Tony pointed accusingly. "Shaming me for having a healthy sexuality, Steve wouldn't do that either. It's sad when your social attitudes are worse than a guy from the Forties, Clint."

Clint gave him a flat stare. "I can't believe you've survived this long. And I really can't believe no one's kicked you out of bed until now."

Tony actually hadn't said that, and couldn't in all honesty say it now, not that he'd have much issue with saying it dishonestly if the situation called for that. Instead, he went with the entirely truthful, "Most people value amazing sex a little higher than _some of us_ , apparently."

Clint rolled his eyes again, flapping a dismissive-looking hand in his direction. "Yeah, yeah. I'm sure Steve appreciates amazing sex just fine."

Tony had actually been talking about those people fortunate enough to experience his brand of amazing sex for themselves, that time. He was pretty sure that had been pretty obvious. He squinted and briefly tried to evaluate the chances that Clint was _jealous_ , before deciding his brain didn't actually have enough storage space for that. He hadn't had any coffee in hours and hours.

"Right," he said, slowly, when no other possibilities presented themselves. "What?"

Clint rolled on his side to face him. The eyebrow hadn't come back; instead he looked exasperated, and a little amused. That _could_ theoretically be the look of Clint Being Jealous. Tony had no data to extrapolate from and seriously couldn't even start to visualize the concept.

"Do you think," Clint said, with what in some other people would be extreme patience (like Steve, but maybe this wasn't the best time to mention that), and in him was basically a clear 'patience goes here' placeholder of vague but lethal mockery, "you could try finding this a little less funny?"

Tony gaped at him, all previous bewilderment forgotten in this new and nonsensical world of confusion. "But it's _hysterical_ ," he pointed out, a little helplessly. "It's _Captain America_."

The corner of Clint's mouth twitched up, just a tiny bit. "Do you think you could try finding this a little less funny while _we're in bed together_?"

"No!"

Clint laughed, which was probably some kind of victory, even if Tony was several light years away from being able to judge this situation enough to know how. That was always a victory, really, though; Clint was high up on a very short list of people Tony absolutely loved to make laugh, and while making him smirk was easy enough that Tony had had to stop awarding himself points for it very early on, actual laughter could be unexpectedly elusive.

"Yeah, okay," he said, laughter still warming his voice in a way that made Tony list towards the bed a little without meaning to. Clint grinned at him, and he grinned back, cautiously. "Do you think you could shut up about it for more than five minutes at a time?"

Tony gave that serious consideration. "...Probably not, no."

The grin didn't die, but Clint huffed a more Clint-y snort and rolled onto his back again. He patted the bed between them without looking. "Get back up here, already."

" _Joss Whedon_ says I'm sleeping with _Captain America_ ," Tony pointed out, pushing himself up enough that he could roll onto the bed again. He stretched out with a possibly-slightly-exaggerated groan and wedged himself into Clint's space as obnoxiously as he could, making sure to stick his feet to the sides of Clint's shins as much as he could. "Joss Whedon, Barton."

"If you start lecturing me about Firefly again," Clint said, kicking him off without much conviction, "you're going to find yourself back on the floor."

Tony re-glued feet to shins and poked him in the side. "You thought it was hilarious at dinner."

"That was before I realized you were going to talk about it non-stop for the next five years," Clint said. "Besides, there's nothing not hilarious about watching Steve's face go so red you expect some kind of alarm to go off."

Tony sighed happily and settled in a bit more, nuzzling in where Clint's neck was nice and warm and his nose would be an annoying cold spot. "This is true."

"He cornered me after dinner to apologize," Clint said. "And to assure me that while he of course knew I didn't think so, I should know nothing at all was going on."

Tony wished he'd been there. Steve had a disturbing habit of managing to get important moments -- read: moments that would make Tony's life a better place for years to come just for being able to watch them -- off any of the cameras in the house somehow. He suspected some kind of dark shady deal with JARVIS, which would mostly mean Steve had at some point gotten Pepper to feel sorry for him. "What did you say?"

"I looked noble and long suffering," Clint said. "And I told him I'd watched Bridges of Madison County and the heart wants what it wants."

Tony tried not to imagine himself as Meryl Streep. "Does Steve even know what Bridges of Madison County is?"

"No. I sent him the Netflix link, though, on the condition that he didn't get any ideas."

Tony really wished he'd been there. "Didn't she stay for the children, anyway?"

"Yes," Clint said, with no hint of shame at sounding so sure. "Obviously, you're right. Bruce's emotional stability trumps you and Rogers' deep soul bond. I should point that out to him."

"I was thinking about Thor," Tony said. "Although it's true, green rage monster's more worrying than... What's the Thor version of acting out? Crashing frat parties?"

"Taking down frat parties in thunder and lightning," Clint suggested. "Restarting Norse religion. Arranging a family reunion."

"Stealing Darcy's taser. No, you're right, you're absolutely right. We'll have to stay together after all."

"I'd feel a lot more satisfied about that," Clint said, "if your feet weren't _still_ freezing."

"And whose fault is that?" Tony rubbed them against his shins a little; the man was right, temperature reacclimatization was taking far too long. "You know... Steve's natural body temperature is --"

That time, he managed to catch himself on the edge of the bed and avoid entirely falling off.


End file.
